50+ Best Free Photoshop Actions & Effects 2021

Photoshop actions are quite useful when optimizing photos, applying effects, and editing graphics. For this collection, we’ve handpicked some of the best free Photoshop actions you can download and use with no price to pay!

Whether you’re a professional designer or a complete beginner, Photoshop actions can help you save a lot of time. Simply put, Photoshop actions pack hours worth of design work into a single-click so that you can achieve professional-level effects without an effort.

In this post, we’re featuring several different types of free Photoshop actions. You’ll find them categorized into different effects and styles below. Have a look and start downloading.

Just looking for a stylish free Photoshop action? No problem. Let’s dive into our collection of the best free Photoshop actions of 2021!

What Type of Free Photoshop Action Do You Need?

We’ve broken our collection down into different categories, so you can quickly find just the right Photoshop action for your project! Almost of all of these Photoshop actions are free, but at the start of each section you’ll see one or two premium ones, just so you have that option to choose as well.

  • Portrait
  • Filters & Effects
  • Outdoor & Landscape
  • Wedding
  • Black & White
  • Newborn Baby

Portrait Photoshop Actions

Skin Retouching Photoshop Actions

Skin Retouching Photoshop Actions

Skin retouching is a complicated process. You can’t get that job done with just one Photoshop action. Which is why this pack comes bundled up with 34 retouching Photoshop actions. It includes PS actions for everything from airbrushing to skin toning, enhancing lips, teeth whitening, and much more.

Free HDR Photoshop Action

Free HDR Photoshop Action

This free HDR Photoshop action allows you to instantly give your photos an authentic HDR-like look to make the photos look more professional. This action will be quite useful for enhancing photos taken in outdoor and natural light conditions, especially including photos taken with smartphones.

40 Free Pastel Effect Photoshop Actions

40 Free Pastel Effect Photoshop Actions

This is a collection of Photoshop actions that allows you to instantly apply beautiful pastel filter effects to your portrait photos to make them look more attractive. It includes 40 different toning effects that are perfect for portrait photographers, graphic designers, and even for optimizing Instagram photos.

Free HDR Portrait Photoshop Actions

Free HDR Photoshop Actions

The HDR effect is a popularly used effect in photography that’s quite difficult to achieve. However, with this free Photoshop action, you can create that same effect almost instantly and give a unique HDR look to your portrait photos.

Free Chilled Photoshop Action

Free Chilled Photoshop Action

Use this free Photoshop action to create a cool chilled effect in your portrait photos. It’s perfect for adding a moody look to your selfies as well. The action works with Photoshop CS4 and higher.

Free Instant Classic Photoshop Action

Free Instant Classic Photoshop Action

Give your portrait photos an instant classic look with this free Photoshop action. It uses a subtle effect to enhance your photos without affecting the original colors and highlights.

Free Lifestyle Photoshop Actions

Free Lifestyle Photoshop Actions

Instagram bloggers and social media users will certainly appreciate this set of free Photoshop actions, which are specially designed for optimizing and enhancing your lifestyle photos.

Free Faded Photoshop Action

Free Faded Photoshop Action

This is the perfect effect to use when your portrait photos show off too much vibrance and color. If you want to add a slightly faded look to make the photos look more natural, this free PS action is perfect for you.

6 Free Photoshop Instagram Actions

6 Free Photoshop Instagram Actions

This is a collection of free Photoshop actions made specifically for enhancing Instagram photos. It includes 6 different actions for optimizing both portrait and landscape photos. It’s ideal for selfie-lovers and travel bloggers.

Artistic Sketch Free Photoshop Action

Artistic Sketch Free Photoshop Action

This unique Photoshop action allows you to transform your portrait photos into works of art. It literally makes your portraits look like they were painted by hand. The action is fully customizable as well.

Fantasy – Free Portrait Photoshop Action

Fantasy - Free Portrait Photoshop Action

Fantasy is a unique Photoshop action that beautifies your portrait photos with a colorful fantasy-inspired toning effect. This effect is ideal for optimizing your photos for Facebook and Instagram.

Free Skin Retouching Photoshop Action

Free Skin Retouching Photoshop Action

It usually takes hours of careful adjustments and brushing for retouching portrait photos. This is a great free Photoshop action that will help you save a lot of your time. This action automatically does all the basic skin retouching and enhancements with just a few clicks.

Free Color Pop Photoshop Action

Free Color Pop Photoshop Action

This free Photoshop action allows you to easily bring out the true colors in your ordinary smartphone photos to make them look more bright and colorful.

Shimmer Free Portrait Photoshop Action

Shimmer Free Portrait Photohop Action

Shimmer is a free Photoshop action made for enhancing your portrait photos. The effect automatically adjusts the brightness and contrast of your photos to make them look more authentic and stand out from the crowd.

Free Haze Dreamy Photoshop Actions

Free Haze Dreamy Photoshop Actions

Add a dreamy and a colorful moody effect to your portrait photos using this free Photoshop actions pack. It includes 3 different actions you can use with various types of portrait photos.

50 Free Family Pack Photoshop Actions

50 Free Family Pack Photoshop Actions

Looking for Photoshop actions to improve your family photos? Well, look no further. This bundle comes with 50 different effects and adjustments for improving your family photos, including portrait and landscape photos.

Free Sharpening Professional Photoshop Actions

Free Sharpening Professional Photoshop Actions

A collection of free sharpening Photoshop actions for easily enhancing your photos by adjusting the sharpness. These actions are ideal for improving smartphone photos as well as photos taken with digital cameras.

100+ Free Pro Photoshop Actions Bundle

100+ Free Pro Photoshop Actions Bundle

A massive bundle of 100 different Photoshop actions for professionals. The actions in this pack are designed for making adjustments, adding filters, and processing professional photography much easier and quicker.

Filters & Effects Photoshop Actions

Modern Art Photoshop Action

Modern Art Photoshop Action

If you’re a fan of modern art, you’ll surely be a fan of this Photoshop action as well. It allows you to transform your images into modern works of art by adding various design elements. It also includes more than 40 color presets.

30 Free Instagram Photoshop Actions

30 Free Instagram Photoshop Actions

If you’re looking for colorful and creative filters similar to the ones on Instagram, this free pack of Photoshop actions will come in handy. It includes 30 different filters you can use to improve all kinds of portrait and landscape photos.

Free Red Water Sketch Photoshop Actions

free photoshop actions

Use this beautiful Photoshop effect and transform your pictures into red watercolor sketch drawings in just a few clicks. It’s a non-destructive filter and works seamlessly with Photoshop CS3 and higher versions.

Free Love Story Photoshop Actions

free photoshop actions

Here we have a collection of Photoshop actions consisting of warm, glowing, and moody filters that will give a beautiful romantic feel to your pictures. You can use these effects for indoor, outdoor, wedding, newborn, urban, portrait, travel, and fashion photography.

Free Deep Matte Photoshop Action

Free Deep Matte Photoshop Action

A stylish effect for improving your portrait and close-up photos. The free Photoshop action adds a deep matte filter to give your photos more depth and mood. It also includes a Lightroom preset as well.

Free Winter Snow Photoshop Actions

Free Winter Snow Photoshop Action

This free Photoshop action is perfect for improving your photos for winter and Christmas-themed designs. It creates a realistic snow effect to give your photos a true Christmassy look. The pack includes 6 different snow actions.

Animated Glitch Photoshop Action

Animated Glitch Photoshop Action

A unique Photoshop action that allows you to turn your photos into an animated GIF with a glitching effect. It’s perfect for creating unique animated graphics for businesses and promotions to attract attention.

Retro Engraving Free Photoshop Action

Retro Engraving Free Photoshop Action

This free Photoshop action allows you to give a realistic engraved look to your photos. It’s perfect for adding a new look to your graphic designs and abstract photography as well.

Dark Mood Free Photoshop Action

Dark Mood Free Photoshop Action

Just as the name suggests, this is a Photoshop action you can use to add a dark and moody tone to your portrait photos. It features a fully adjustable effect you can edit to fit different kinds of photos.

Warfighter Free Photoshop Action

Warfighter Free Photoshop Action

Using this free Photoshop action you’ll be able to add a stylish splash effect to your designs. It’s especially useful for designing posters and flyers. The effect is fully customizable and works with all modern versions of Photoshop.

Comic Art Free Photoshop Action

Comic Art Free Photoshop Action

Give your portrait photos an old-school comic book look and feel using this free Photoshop action. The action simply makes your photos and graphics look like a page out of a retro comic book. And it’s free to download.

Free Glitch Photoshop Action

Free Glitch Photoshop Action

The retro-themed glitch effect is quite popular in poster and graphic designs. This free Photoshop action lets you create that same effect instantly with just a few clicks. It includes a PSD file and a pattern file you can grab for free to create the effect.

Cinematic Free Portrait Photoshop Action

Cinematic Free Portrait Photoshop Action

Give your portrait photos a cinematic look and feel using this free Photoshop action. It lets you add a creative cinematic toning effect to your portraits to make them look like a scene out of a movie.

Free Nightmare Photoshop Action

Free Nightmare Photoshop Action

If you’re working on a gloomy or horror-themed design, this free Photoshop action will allow you to add a surreal dark effect to your designs. This action works best with outdoor photos.

Free Dispersion Photoshop Action

Free Dispersion Photoshop Action

The dispersion effect is a widely used effect in poster and flyer designs. With this free Photoshop action, you can recreate the same effect with just a few clicks. The action even allows you to choose the direction of the dispersion effect as well.

10 Free Winter Blues Photoshop Effect Actions

10 Free Winter Blues Photoshop Effect Actions

A collection of 10 different Photoshop actions featuring winter-themed effects and styles. These actions are perfect for improving your winter portrait and landscape photography.

Free Bokeh Photoshop Action

Free Bokeh Photoshop Action

Add a creative bokeh background to your photos using this easy-to-use Photoshop action. The action works with just one click and lets you customize the effect to your preference as well.

Free Cosmic Photoshop Action

Free Cosmic Photoshop Action

This free Photoshop action comes with a creative and colorful effect that will add more beauty and color to your ordinary portrait photos. It will especially come in handy for enhancing your smartphone photos.

Free Duotone Photoshop Actions

Free Duotone Photoshop Actions

If you’re looking for a way to make your photos look more creative or add a colorful filter like on Instagram, these free Photoshop actions will be useful to you. It includes a set of modern duotone effects that will make your photos look more creative.

EasyComic Free Photoshop Action

EasyComic Free Photoshop Action

With this free Photoshop action, you can completely transform your ordinary photos to make then look like a page out of a comic book. The action is quite easy to use and works with both portrait and landscape photos.

Outdoor & Landscape Photoshop Actions

Free Cinema Photoshop Action

Free Cinema Photoshop Action

This beautiful and high-quality Photoshop action will completely transform your outdoor landscape photos by giving them a cinematic look and feel. The effect of the action is adjustable and it’s free to download and use.

Free Lomo Photoshop Action

Free Lomo Photoshop Action

The Lomography effect is quite popular among professional photographers, which help add a unique look and feel to outdoor and landscape photos. This free Photoshop action allows you to apply the same effect to your photos without a hassle.

Natural Light Landscape Photoshop Action

Natural Light Landscape Photoshop Action

Instantly adjust light, contrast, and brightness of your outdoor landscape and nature photography using this free Photoshop action. It’s perfect for making your smartphone photos look more professional.

Into The Jungle Photoshop Actions

Into The Jungle Photoshop Actions

This pack comes with 2 different Photoshop actions that allow you to easily optimize your photos taken in outdoor environments. It automatically adjusts the contrast and toning to make your photos look more natural.

Free Summer Photoshop Actions

Free Summer Photoshop Actions

This is a massive bundle of 50 free Photoshop actions. It includes various styles of actions for adding a summer-themed colorful effect to your photos. Even your photos taken during Winter will look like summer once you process them with this free PS action.

Filmtastic Free Photoshop Action

Filmtastic Free Photoshop Action

This free Photoshop action lets you apply a unique film-inspired toning effect to your outdoor and landscape photos. It’s free to download and use with your personal projects.

50 Free Autumn Photoshop Actions

50 Free Autumn Photoshop Actions

Another bundle of free Photoshop actions featuring 50 different autumn-inspired effects. These actions are ideal for photos taken in outdoors and low light conditions.

Free Vintage Landscape Photoshop Action

free photoshop actions

Next up we have a Photoshop action created to give your photos a unique vintage look. The action is purpose-built for landscape and outdoor photography but is versatile enough to be easily used for enhancing portrait, lifestyle, urban, and fashion shots.

Wedding Photoshop Actions

25 Bridal Wedding Photoshop Actions

25 Bridal Photoshop Actions

This is a bundle of wedding Photoshop actions that work well for optimizing bridal photos. However, they should work well for enhancing couple and groom photos as well. It includes 25 different Photoshop actions with various effects.

Free Royal Wedding Pro Photoshop Actions

Free Royal Wedding Pro Photoshop Actions

This free wedding-themed Photoshop action features an easy to use effect that optimizes your wedding photos for the best color and contrast ratio. It’s most suitable for enhancing outdoor photos.

6 Free Vintage Wedding Photoshop Actions

6 Free Vintage Wedding Photoshop Actions

This set of vintage Photoshop actions include 6 different effects featuring matte, HDR, and vintage styles that are perfect for improving wedding photos, fashion photos, portraits, and much more.

Free Bridal Photoshop Actions

free photoshop actions

This collection of Photoshop actions has been carefully crafted to make your special day photos a lot more special by giving them a beautiful finish. The filters convert your pictures into a magical dream in lightning-fast speed.

20 Free Wedding Photoshop Actions

20 Free Wedding Photoshop Actions

This is a collection of 20 useful Photoshop actions featuring various effects for enhancing and optimizing different types of wedding photos. It will help make your wedding photos look even more beautiful.

Free Wedding Photoshop Actions

Free Wedding Photoshop Actions

This free Photoshop action is specially crafted for enhancing the tone and contrast of your wedding photos to make them much more beautiful. It includes 10 different filters that you can easily customize to your preference as well.

Free Aesthetic Vintage Wedding PS Action

Free Aesthetic Vintage Wedding PS Action

Another great free Photoshop action for enhancing your wedding photos. It includes a unique toning effect that will make your photos look more vibrant with colors and style.

30 Free Vintage Photoshop Actions

30 Free Vintage Photoshop Actions

Give your portrait and landscape wedding photos a more authentic look and feel using this bundle of free Photoshop action. This pack includes 30 different actions that allow you to instantly create a stunning vintage toning effect.

Facebook Fix – Free Wedding Photoshop Action

Facebook Fix - Free Wedding Photoshop Action

This is a multipurpose Photoshop action that can be used to improve all kinds of photos from portraits to wedding photos and more. It’s specially optimized to enhance photos for Facebook. So the ideal image size is 960 pixels.

Black & White Photoshop Actions

Carbonium – Black & White PS Actions

Carbonium - Black & White PS Actions

Carbonium is a collection of black and white grading actions created by a group of professional photographers. The actions in this pack have been specially optimized to give your photos a unique vintage feel and a classic look. The pack comes with 16 different variations of B&W actions as well.

Free Bold Black & White Photoshop Action

Free Bold Black & White Photoshop Action

Creating an authentic black and white effect will be much easier when you have this free Photoshop action installed in Photoshop. This action allows you to instantly create a stylish black and white effect without any effort.

20 Free Black & White Photoshop Actions

20 Free Black & White Photoshop Actions

A set of 20 different black and white transformation effects you can use to optimize various styles of photos. This pack includes several unique styles of B&W effects, including sepia, faded, and high ISO effects.

Free Noir Black & White Photoshop Actions

free photoshop actions

Give your photos a classic vintage black and white appearance with the Noir B & W Photoshop actions exclusively designed to take your shots to a whole new level. This is a great freebie, and we wholeheartedly recommend you check it out pronto.

Free High Contrast Black & White Photoshop Action

Free High Contrast Black & White Photoshop Action

This unique black and white Photoshop action auto-adjusts the contrast of your photos to make your landscape and outdoor photos look more amazing with a gritty look and feel.

Free Vintage B&W Photoshop Action

Free Vintage B&W Photoshop Action

Create a unique vintage black and white effect using this free Photoshop action. It also creates the effect with adjustment layers, allowing you to edit the effect to your preference.

Free Old & Dirty Photoshop Action

Free Old & Dirty Photoshop Action

Using the actions in this pack you’ll be able to give your ordinary photos a stylish black and white effect with a vintage look and feel. It also includes a Lightroom preset version of the effect as well.

Newborn Baby Photoshop Actions

20 Newborn Lightroom Presets

This is a bundle of Lightroom presets that comes with 20 different presets for enhancing your newborn photos and applying stylish effects. It features several effects for improving portrait baby photos, adjusting the eyes, soft skin, adding soft warm effects, transforming to B&W, and more.

Free Born Baby Photoshop Actions

Free Born Baby Photoshop Actions

Make your newborn look even cuter in your photos using this collection of baby Photoshop action. This bundle includes 2 creative actions that can be easily adjusted and customized to many types of photos.

Free Baby Photoshop Actions

Free Baby Photoshop Actions

This is a collection of Photoshop actions specially made for improving newborn photos. It includes various actions for adding effects as well as for retouching the baby skin to make it look much smoother as well.

Fairy Free Photoshop Action

Fairy Free Photoshop Action

Even though this Photoshop action isn’t made specifically for babies, it includes a set of natural pastel effects that will allow you to add a beautiful toning effect to your newborn photos.

If you’re looking for editable and premium actions that you can customize however you like, be sure to check out our best Photoshop actions collection.<h3